It the David Bowie thread, after a few twists & turns, it transpired that although I recognise and acknowledge that both Iggy Pop and the New York Dolls are significant/influential, I have never really enjoyed listening to their music (the odd Bowie-era Iggy track aside).

And Adam fessed up that he felt similarly about Scott Walker - he didn't specify whether it was Scott's late 60s Brel-in-a-bedsit phase or his born-again avant-garde thwacking-a-tarpaulin-with-a-pork-chop-while-berating-General-Pinochet era, although I suspect both.

So, any other offers. Artistes whose cultural merit you don't deny but who give you the dry heaves........

Well I wouldn't go so far as to say poor old Scott gives me the dry heaves but I do have to leave the room after a few tracks. I have a dear friend who tries to play me the new stuff but it just sounds so silly to me. And as for the Brel-in-a bedsit stuff, I do want to slap him with a wet fish, it's true.

Scott anecdote: I used to teach his manager's kid and I heard this from the manager so it's almost certainly true. Scott has studio monitor levels at brain melting volume. Engineers crawl out on their knees at odd times of the morning clutching their poor, ringing ears. One of them had the guts to finally say: "WHY? Scott. Why do you have to have it up so loud all the time?" "Because", said Scott, "once it's finished I will never listen to it again".

OK. My aversion to Joan Baez is strangely shifting. I never thought it would happen but it is. I still can't stand The Pixies - who everybody tells me are wonderful and invented Nirvana etc.

The worst and most shameful confession, though, and one for which I fully expect to be barred from the forum is I don't much like The Clash. I like the 1st album, and bits of "London Calling", but it's all a bit too gung-ho, boys together for me. Sorry. I'll get my coat.

Jamie Renton wrote:I'm not playing this game because the list would be too long and you'd all want to give me dead legs and wedgies well before I got to the end of it.

Oh Jamie! As if... (You do like The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, though, don't you?)

Oh yes, don't like Talking Heads but everybody else does. Pretty much the whole canon of Opera gives me an allergic reaction (WHY do they have to sing like that?) Pretty much all Heavy Metal (except for the completely wonderful first two Black Sabbath albums.)

Worldy stuff: lots of Latin American stuff that I know I ought to like but can't get with all that macho shit. Similar problem with Flamenco as soon as anyone starts singing.

Oh dear, I sense I am digging myself in deeper.

Rob: I'm with you on Cale. Brilliant producer and sideman, boring artist. Love Patti Smith. Can't listen to the Sex Pistols anymore. So brutish. Interesting that you lump Queen and Pink Floyd together. I suppose they were both hugely influential. My consumer's guide to Pink Floyd from here a few years back is still unrevised. I like "Now I'm Here" by Queen, but not so much I ever need to hear it again.

My lifelong "problem" with the Grateful Dead looked like it was shifting a couple of years ago but has now re-ossified. They make more sense in context, I will say that.

I better go and do some work. I think I'll put the Beach Boys greatest hits on while I tidy up. THERE's a surprise. I always hated The Beach Boys until about five years ago when the penny dropped. Just goes to show, it can happen.

Adam: regarding Patti - if it's any consolation, I think she's probably a seriously wonderful person, but I bought myself a copy of 'Horses' about 10 years ago and - 'Gloria' apart - I could barely get through it. Then I tried again, and failed again.

I always quite liked (which, in my book, means 'put up with') The Beach Boys until about ten years ago when I realised that they were The Bleach Boys. 'Tis a cultural thing - irrational, inexplicable and prejudiced for sure, but cultural nevertheless. Same as apples - they're Jewish when in strudel, baked, stewed with a bit of cinnamon, or even when eaten raw (but sliced); when you crunch into them whole, well that's definitely Beach Boys.

Going back to Queen: I remember having a passing interest in them when '7 Seas of Rhye' was released, but that was it. I once had an exchange with a pal who thought they were a really important band and, when I asked him what made them so important, he said 'videos, they made really good videos'. My case was well and truly laid to rest at that point and has not moved since.

I've recently been cured of my lifelong Patti Smith-o-phobia by her appearances on BBC4 documentaries on women in rock and poetry. Plus this scene from "gritty as a grit sandwich with added grit on the side" Brit flick Catch Me Daddy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYT2JjPUQ9w.

Well, a guitarist would say that..... After they came along, you might as well have been playing the lute!

I should join back in and reiterate my long-term aversion to Pink Floyd, although I don't think they were important in the slightest after Syd Barrett imploded.

Drum'n'bass / jungle (old man terms probably v.out of date) -- that was when I gave up trying to kid myself I could keep up with dance genres. Played that Goldie album for an age hoping it would get through, but nah.

Radiohead: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.(Although I can still enjoy horrifying a room full of students by saying they made fewer good records than S Club 7. Who only made one.)

I abhor censorship, this includes self-cenorship to avoid being attacked for an opinion. So Andy, Jamie et al, feel free to name those Xs. For me they include: Joan B and that whole swathe of insipid US folkies from the early-mid 60s. (God, people complain about Catherine Ferrier!); the Lovin Spoonful; Nirvana; all Brazilian producers who turn wonderful singers (Cesaria, Mariza, etc) into Rio Bland; the Grateful Dead; Clapton (before, during and after his Enoch Powell phase) ; John Mayall; the New York Dolls; Sonic Youth; Graham Parker; Autobahn (especially the album version; the Who's Tommy ; Queen, esp Brian May; Beyoncé; gangsta rap (I like a lot of hip-hop); Kris Kristoffison. Donovan and Jamie Cullum. The last two are jokes.Aly